He had recounted the story with such frequency that he no longer needed to pay attention to the words he was speaking; it had become second nature. He always started at the same place, back when the fever had passed, but he had not yet regained his former strength. Kimathi, the Masai guide who had saved him from death, had done an admirable job in speeding his recovery, but Ashton could still not reconcile himself with the manner in which his fortunes had taken such a radical turn. Initially, he would tell people very few details—only that he had been on safari with friends, that he had, at long last, got the elephant he had so craved, and that he had collapsed soon after having indulged in some celebratory champagne.
Kimathi painted a fuller story, one so outrageous and unlikely that Ashton had been loath to accept it, but the guide, who had proved loyal time and time again, insisted he had saved the Englishman from murderous hands by spiriting him off under the cover of night to the remote camp of the tribe with whom Kimathi’s sister had lived from the time of her marriage.
Ashton told his eager listeners—they were always eager—that for months he had known nothing more than this. So far as he could make out, he had been unconscious for weeks. He understood their language, but the Masai did not subscribe to anything like the concept of the English calendar. After he awoke to find himself in a primitive tent, a heavy beard covering his face, his mind had remained clouded with fever for at least another month. It was not until his body had recovered enough for him to start going out with the tribe’s hunters that he began asking questions no one could answer. No one, that is, until Kimathi returned from his own domicile. Ashton smiled as he realized the inanity of his word choice. Domicile and Masai did not go together in any ordinary sense.
Kimathi had visited Ashton erratically after having first brought him to his sister. The Masai were nomadic, and it was no short journey across seemingly endless plains for Kimathi to see his friend. When at last they sat together in front of the fire in the center of the camp, the warriors circled behind, as if protecting them from some unseen spirit. Kimathi told him what he had seen that fateful night: One of the white men in the hunting party had put something into Ashton’s drink, something that had nearly killed him. The other Englishmen, Kimathi said, believed their friend had a fever, and they all went away, worrying it was contagious. Only Hargreaves had remained behind, nursing his friend through illness and—so Hargreaves thought—death.
Kimathi knew better, though. He knew this was not sickness, but poison, and he knew the sleep it brought mimicked death. He also knew that the man who had administered it had come back to the camp when Hargreaves was asleep, to see if Ashton had succumbed to his evil deed. This frightened Kimathi. He could see devils in this white man, and he knew that only he could protect Ashton.
Everyone who witnessed the tragic scene believed Ashton to be dead. Even the newspapers had reported as much. His breath appeared to have stopped, and any trace of a heartbeat was too faint for anyone to detect. Kimathi stood by as Hargreaves bathed his friend’s body and dressed it before lowering it into a hastily built coffin. And then, while the Englishman dealt with the necessary arrangements to return the coffin to Ashton’s family, Kimathi replaced it with a second one, built hastily as well under the cover of night, and occupied by the corpse of an elderly Masai man from Kimathi’s tribe who had died the day before.
The Masai do not bury their dead, but instead leave them out for predators. No one would have objected to Kimathi’s having moved the remains—bodies did not matter; the essence of the person was gone. Only great chiefs were buried, so, if anything, this man was receiving an unexpected honor. Kimathi did not think this would offend his god, Enkai, who was all of the earth and the sky and whatever else Kimathi might never see. He worried the body was too slim and added a few rocks to the wooden box, wanting to ensure that the weight would not arouse suspicion. He had wrapped it securely in blankets, and could only hope no one would try to remove them if they did have cause to open the coffin. But even if it were opened, this would not matter once Kimathi had got his friend to safety; no one would have any idea where to look for him. He removed the lid from the wooden box occupied by the Englishman, attached it to a makeshift sledge, and dragged it for a day and a night until he reached the tribe of his sister’s husband.
Now that Ashton had his strength back, he knew he ought to set off for home, but the days he spent with the Masai ran one into the other, and he found leaving more difficult than he could have anticipated. He had grown accustomed to life in the camp, and the tribe had begun to accept him as one of their own. He hunted with them, and the thrill of this proved superior to any prior experience in his life.
In the past, his safaris had been decidedly tourist affairs, even though, at the time, he had believed passionately he was the least European of the European hunters on the Dark Continent. How wrong he had been! Now he stalked his prey without the Western trappings of comfort he had previously required. Now he had no cook, no servants, no one to tend to his game after it had fallen. Life presented him with fewer complications here, and his experience was far richer than any he’d had in England, or even when he had traveled.
While honing the tip of his spear in camp one day, he looked up and called a greeting to a young woman who had just recently given birth to her first child, the infant now snuggled tight against her chest. The image stirred something in him, and he began to think about Kallista—Emily, his wife—and to consider how long he had been gone. Now that he had regained his health, he had no reason to delay his trip home, and he admitted, with a degree of reluctance he found nearly inconceivable, that he could not live the rest of his life with the Masai. He had to return to England.
The next time Kimathi came to see him, they agreed he would start his journey when the moon was full again. When he left, Kimathi walked with him, the days blending into weeks, to the nearest European outpost, where Ashton persuaded a group of Germans en route to Cairo to let him join their party. The viscount promised remuneration as soon as they arrived in the Egyptian capital. Kimathi wept when they parted, but Ashton promised to return, determined they would hunt together again.
Much as he had relished his time with the Masai, being back in the company of educated men quenched a thirst he had forgot he had. He had lost so much of what mattered to him during his time in Africa—his study of Greek, his writing, his antiquities, his wife—and when he’d learned three years had passed since that fateful day of his last safari, he’d begun to worry that going back to his old life might not be a simple endeavor.
When they reached Cairo, the Germans refused to let Ashton give them anything in return for their hospitality, which proved fortunate for the Englishman. He never suspected he would have trouble securing a room at Shepheard’s Hotel, believing the manager would be sure to recognize him from previous visits. His assumption was foolish. The clerk at the desk, after consulting with the manager, told him that Philip, the Viscount Ashton, had perished in East Africa on safari years ago. His demise had been reported in all the papers and the management of Shepheard’s did not look kindly on those adopting false identities. Ashton demanded to speak to the manager himself, and the man, who did admit he looked familiar, stated firmly that he could not give him a room on credit if Ashton could not somehow prove his identity.
He met the same resistance at the bank. Unable to access his funds, Ashton stormed into the office of the British consul, where he was treated with politeness and a great deal of pity before they ushered him out with the address of a physician they hoped might be able to treat his disorder.
How foolish to have believed his appearance alone would make the world recognize he was still alive! He had nothing that proved his story. He had almost no possessions: just the clothing given to him by the Germans. He had no books, no letters, no objects of sentimental value, not even the photograph taken of his lovely wife on their wedding day.
That, he had left in France.